‘This house is protected by an attack cat,’ warns the sign nailed to the gate. ‘And the attack cat is protected by my gun.’
It is after 8pm and the last of the evening sun is draining from the timbered roofs of rural Bavaria. Perhaps, I decide, it is wise to bid this particular cul-de-sac goodnight and return in the morning, when the cats – and their owners – might be more hospitable.
I am in Krumbach, the birthplace of Thomas Tuchel. Earlier, standing in the cobblestone market square, I had been reminded of the scene in Only Fools and Horses when Del Boy and Rodney arrive in a French village and discover that every man resembles their late Uncle Albert. Here, not everyone looks like Tuchel, but everyone seems connected to him by some invisible thread.
During 24 hours in Tuchel Town – population 13,000 and sleepy to the point of sedation – I do not meet a single resident without a story, opinion or memory of its most famous son.
My search for the two who know him best, his mother and father, takes as many turns as the Kammel river that winds lazily through this medieval settlement of stone footbridges, pastel facades and onion-domed churches.
It begins with a near miss on an otherwise motionless Thursday teatime. From the market square, I step into the wood-panelled warmth of Hotel Gasthof Traubenbrau – The Grape Brewery – and introduce myself to the young waiter. He knows of Tuchel, naturally. But not as well as his boss, he explains. He went to school with him.
Thomas Tuchel during his childhood, growing up in the small Bavarian town of Krumbach
He is now 52 and has the task of a lifetime – trying to lead England to World Cup glory
Krumbach, nestled in the Swabia region of Bavaria and home to just 13,000 people
‘Is your boss here?’
‘Yes, one moment.’
His boss arrives and the waiter explains to him, in German, that I’m a journalist on the trail of the England manager.
‘Would it be OK to have a chat?’ I ask.
‘I am very busy right now,’ he says. I take a table and order a steak. Within five minutes he joins me.
‘I played football with Thomas,’ reveals Georg Ringler, owner of this family-run Bavarian delight. ‘Aged 14, we won the national championship.’
Wow. You must have been good? ‘Not as good as Thomas.’
Do you still see him? ‘Not often, but I spoke to him when he got the England job and wished him good luck. His parents still live here. In fact, they were in earlier for lunch. They sat just there.’
Georg points to the table beside mine. If only it had not taken a taxi, train, bus and three hours to journey the 70 miles from Munich to get here – through endless folds of farmland – I might have been sharing my rump steak with the Tuchels. It gives me an idea that I quietly store for later.
But what I really want to understand from my short stay is how this town feels about Tuchel, and whether it will be supporting England during the World Cup.
‘No, we are German in our heart,’ says Georg, shutting down the notion of St George’s flags fluttering in the beer garden. There will be two big screens for the tournament but the England games, he suspects, will be background noise to clinking steins and cutlery. They have more Dutch and Swiss visitors in the summer anyway. I put it to him that Krumbach feels a little cold towards Tuchel.
‘Maybe in the past, but I think that is changing,’ he says. ‘Once, he didn’t want much to do with this town. Now, he comes back. He is older, wiser. The town is more proud.’
The market square in Krumbach, which bustles with activity on Fridays
The Tuchel he remembers at the nearby Simpert Kraemer Gymnasium, the secondary school they shared, sounds similar to the one we have come to know as our national-team boss.
‘He was always straight – there was no left, no right, it was his way!’ he says.
A yearbook from the class of 1992 captures Tuchel the teenager, describing his ‘playful arrogance’, hairband and 1960s flares, a taste for older women and habit of wearing sunglasses indoors.
It concludes with admiration: ‘But enough of the bad things! All in all, Thomas was a conscientious student, who the pitiful rest of K13 could not surpass in terms of punctuality and accuracy, nor in terms of homework, enthusiasm and friendliness.’
Settling my bill – sadly there is no room for the Kasespatzle that Tuchel enjoys when he is here, a traditional dish of pasta and cheese – I tell Georg that I hope to say hello to Mr and Mrs Tuchel before the night is out.
‘Good luck,’ he says, and he won’t be the last to offer such cautious encouragement. Within half an hour, confronted with the warning of cats and guns, I postpone my plan until sunrise.
Later, in Klaus, a bar tucked beneath a house on the road out of town, there is a group of students watching football on TV. They know Tuchel and are engaged, if baffled, by my presence. To them, he is the manager of Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and now England, a man exported from their backwater hamlet to the great cities of Europe. This generation leans on their elders for association.
‘My granddad coached Tuchel,’ says Louis, 21. ‘And my mother played different sports with him. She says he had something special about him. Everyone knows he’s from here, but no, I don’t feel a connection.’
To the people of Krumbach, Tuchel is the manager of PSG, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and now England, a man exported from their backwater hamlet to the great cities of Europe
Sebastian says his father was in the same class as Tuchel at Simpert Kraemer, which he also attended, but there is no legacy of him at the school, no murals or plaques. Another friend, Kaan, had his picture taken with Tuchel in a toy store when he returned after winning the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021. He is more enthusiastic than his peers.
‘If not Germany, we’d like England to win the World Cup, for sure,’ he says. ‘Seeing him was amazing. He was super friendly. It’s pretty cool that he’s from here.’
But they reserve the most warmth for Tuchel’s mother, Gabriele.
‘She is lovely,’ says Louis. ‘She is involved in politics here and does lots of work in the community, for children. We all know her, and his father.’
I hope to meet them tomorrow, I say.
‘Good luck,’ offers Louis. ‘I hope his mother answers the door!’
It is Friday morning and, for one day a week, the market square has a market. Before leaving my guest house overlooking the stalls of sausage, cheese and more sausage, the receptionist tells me that her friend is a relative of Tuchel and she has met him twice – once at a family party and once in a restaurant. That Tuchel thread weaves under every door.
It takes me next to the offices of Mittelschwabische Nachrichten, the local newspaper. Rebekka Jakob, the editor, pours coffee and welcomes my intrigue.
‘Krumbach is kind of proud of Thomas,’ she begins. ‘But the people would love to have more of him here, to know him better. He’s not often around. That makes it a little bit complicated. For us, we are all aware when he is back. Word spreads. But we also know he wouldn’t want us to mention it in our coverage. He is in the news a lot. He has to have a place where he can be in private and be around his family.’
With his parents Rudolf (left) and Gabriele (second left), and PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi (right) in 2019 while managing the French side
A graduate of Simpert Kraemer, Rebekka, remembers the gifted older boy: ‘I never spoke to him – he was a few years above me, and you don’t talk to the little girls! But you recognise there is somebody who is doing great at his sports. If you were interested in soccer, you’d look at him and know he was good.’
In 1992, Tuchel left Krumbach aged 18 to play for second-tier Stuttgarter Kickers, this after five years in the youth ranks of FC Augsburg, 50 miles from here. The evening before, I had called by his junior club, TSV Krumbach, but there was no sign of life. It takes our conversation to his parents, and first his father, Rudolf, who was a coach at TSV.
‘His dad always had his back and supported his career strongly,’ says Rebekka. ‘Thomas is from a small town, and if you had a talent like he has, you have to do everything as parents to bring your child to the place they want to be, the place they deserve to be. It’s not easy. We are in a nice town, but we don’t have many opportunities.
‘Many people who live in Krumbach, they have their hearts here. I have the same talk to my children now. The things they want to do in their lives, they won’t happen unless they leave Krumbach.’
Tuchel’s mother, a former teacher of children with special needs, is one of those people whose heart is here.
‘Gabriele is very well known,’ says Rebekka. ‘She is very social and does a lot in her free time for children. She is a helper. She is someone who is there for others. She has just been elected deputy mayor – a popular choice!’
A leader, like her son, it seems. Maybe she can use her power to arrange England’s games on a giant screen in the square?
‘I don’t think England matters too much to the people here,’ says Rebekka. ‘We are Germans, we are Bavarians, and we will be cheering for the German team. Should Germany drop out before England, which is unlikely, perhaps we would switch to England. We will have our correspondent in the United States and he will send us stories on England, too. A German, from Krumbach, in charge of England, it’s a big deal. When Prince William spoke about Thomas, I realised just how big the job is!’
In 1992, Tuchel left Krumbach aged 18 to play for second-tier Stuttgarter Kickers
Tuchel played eight league games for the club, then spent three years with SSV Ulm before retiring in 1998
A yearbook from the class of 1992 captures Tuchel the teenager, describing his ‘playful arrogance’, a taste for older women and habit of wearing sunglasses indoors
Now for my biggest job. After a five-minute walk, avoiding tractors in the road, I’m back in the cul-de-sac with two small houses and high hedges. The family name on the door beyond the gate – the one of cat and gun witticism – is not Tuchel, but I suspect that is deliberate. The security cameras and powerful SUV tell me that I’m in the right place. I knock, and step back. A tall man, bald, shoots around the corner from the garden. It’s Mr Tuchel.
‘Hello. I’m a journalist,’ I splutter.
He smiles. I was not expecting that. I ramble about covering the England national team and how much we like his son. Is he looking forward to the World Cup?
‘I don’t like football. I like motorbikes,’ he says.
Good one. Thirty confused seconds pass and I applaud him for the ruse.
‘I don’t have a son called Thomas,’ he had said.
Thirty seconds become 60. Wait. He really isn’t who I think he is?
‘Ah. Thomas Tuchel! Now I understand!’ he announces.
Scheisse. This is awkward.
‘His parents live not far from here,’ he says, pointing me in the right direction. I leave, thankful for the guidance – and thankful that I haven’t seen any cats, or guns.
This, I learn, was Tuchel’s childhood home until he was 12 years old before the family – he has a sister, Sabrina – moved to the house for which I’m now headed. Passing the school, I realise I’m taking the 500-metre route that Tuchel would have walked or cycled every day. Inner-city London this is not – the lawns are better kept than Wembley and birdsong hangs in the air like church music.
And here it is, I think. I push the doorbell. A silhouette approaches. Please be Mrs Tuchel. Mr Tuchel answers. A belated Google image search en route gives me a positive ID. He’s unarmed. He smiles. This is going well.
‘Hello. I’m a journalist.’ He’s not smiling now.
Playing for Augsburg’s youth team, whom he joined in 1987 from TSV Krumbach
Tuchel’s mother agrees that her boy was always going to outgrow this town
Mrs Tuchel appears. I have a plan. Lunch at The Grape Brewery? She politely declines and explains that they choose not to do interviews. I respect that, and she understands why I ask. I then mention our near miss the day before, which amuses her. For 10 minutes, in the sunshine on the doorstep, we chat.
She laughs when I tell her about her son ditching his taxi and taking an E-bike through London last year when he was late for dinner with some of the England press pack. She calls Mr Tuchel back out from the kitchen to tell him the story. He likes it.
We talk about children – the ones she helps here, my children, her children. It just so happens that one of hers is the England manager. She agrees that her boy was always going to outgrow this town. The good folk of Krumbach are right, she is lovely.
Before leaving, I ask if I’ll see her in America. Maybe New York, for the final, she returns with a glint in her eye.
Here’s hoping, Mrs Tuchel. A small town. A big dream.
